Padres 3, Astros 1: Offense comes crashing back down to Earth

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SAN DIEGO — The Astros’ four-game winning streak, modest by usual standards but still a season high, ended with barely a whimper Friday night with a 3-1 loss to the San Diego Padres marked by two kinds of offensive failings.

From the onset, it was the missed opportunities.

The Astros had runners in scoring position in the first five innings — four of those five times with fewer than two outs — and managed one run out of the whole business.

After five innings, silence.

The Padres’ Dustin Moseley (2-6) and relievers Mike Adams and Heath Bell did not allow a hit the rest of the way, striking out six in the final four innings.

“It was uncharacteristic,” Astros manager Brad Mills said of the club that came into the game second in the National League in hitting with runners in scoring position. “It was kind of a surprise.

“You’re used to guys getting hits and doing it, and it just didn’t happen (Friday night).”

In the end, the Astros’ offense produced a fun piece of trivia and little else in support of J.A. Happ’s start.

Chris Johnson became the first Astro since Billy Hatcher on June 1, 1989, to hit two triples in the same game, connecting in the second and fourth innings.

Squeeze play nets a run

The first time, he was stranded as J.R. Towles grounded out with the infield in on a bizarre deflection from shortstop Jason Bartlett to second baseman Logan Forsythe and Happ struck out to end the inning.

The Astros didn’t take the same chance the second time with Towles squeezing home Johnson on a perfectly executed play to give the Astros a 1-0 lead.

But after Clint Barmes doubled with one out in the fifth, the lone Astros baserunner would be a ninth-inning walk to Brett Wallace.

The lead was gone by the time of their last hit, too. Gone in a flurry of offense as a Padres team that averaged 2.3 runs per game put up three in two innings.

After Happ got through three innings without yielding a hit, Bartlett, Chase Headley and Jorge Cantu hit consecutive singles for the tying run in the fourth, and two batters later, Aaron Cunningham doubled in Ryan Ludwick to give the Padres a lead they wouldn’t lose.

Chris Denorfia doubled that lead in the fifth with a 400-foot rocket over the center-field fence, and in this ballpark with the Padres’ relief pitching, it played like a 10-run lead.

In all, Happ allowed three runs on six hits and two walks in six innings, falling to 3-7 on the season and putting him in only the company of Pittsburgh’s Paul Maholm among the NL’s seven-game losers.

Happ frustrated

“I definitely feel like I’ve pitched better than that,” Happ said. “Sometimes it’s frustrating.”
Speaking of company, the Astros missed out on a chance to get some company in the basement of the NL standings as the Padres pulled two games ahead.